The Madness Continues
by Hitomi Zotz
Summary: Sequel to my fic Undead Madness. The mystery of Ariadne's sudden mortality makes her of interest to Kindred and she is sought out by friends and foe alike. Is she the saviour of Gehenna or another sign of it? Or is she just a puppet in Malkav's game? A certain fallen prince and knowledgeable Noddist are curious to find out but they are not alone.


My name is Sarah Grey. My name is Sarah Grey. Say it, over and over, keep it memorised, don't ever forget, don't let them tell you different. Once you let them win, let them start convincing you of things that's it over. I let a nervous giggle escape me before I could help it.

It drew the attention of the stern eyed matron almost immediately. "Problem Miss Grey?"

"No, no problem," I murmured hastily. Sarah Grey, my name is Sarah Grey but it wasn't always was it? I shook my head angrily. That's what got you into this mess in the first place, listening to the nonsense, daddy had no choice, how could he with you mumbling to people who weren't there? Up and vanished for over a year then back without an explanation. He had to do it, had to see you locked up and abandoned. Two children gone, missing, one returns and that's how he treats you, by getting rid of you again? You, me, us, I! Only I!

"Miss Grey I think it would be best if you went back to your room," the matron remarked sternly.

I shook my head again. "I'm fine," I muttered. Out of my room meant out of company, away from the television and the distractions, it meant loneliness, solitude, and a fine time for the voices to take advantage.

"It was not a suggestion."

I heard the feet of the orderlies approaching, Dick and Greg, Dick was brutish and Greg...Greg reminded me of the nurses in Santa Monica, he was an odd combination of Phil and Vandal, he had Phil's good looks and Vandal's mean streak. Greg did favours for boobs; Greg also did punishment if he didn't get boobs.

"No," I snarled out a protest as the voices turned into a loud chorus and I was seized by either arm.

The matron sighed and pursed her thin lips at me. "Do I need to get the doctor Miss Grey?" She hated giving me the option but daddy paid well, better than some of the folks' relations here, so I didn't just get an imposing shot or forced pills, I got a visit from the doctor, Dr. Jett.

I shook my head angrily and tried to make myself go limp, urged myself to be quiet and compliant but the voices had a different idea. "Ariadne!" it erupted from me as a defiant shriek. "Ariadne! Ariadne!"

I was dragged off shrieking to my room, my prison where they forced me to the bed and bound me down with straps. Inhuman, illegal surely but this asylum was aloof, left to its own devices atop a hill near the sea, no one ventured near it to scorn, no one wanted to. As long as this place kept the mad contained securely no one wanted to know how they, how we were contained. No, no, not mad! Not mad! "I'M SARAH GREY! SARAH GREY!"

Oh yes you are, well you were, once, but you gave that name up! "Dead toys for dead boys," the voices taunted. "Battling with madness itself, fighting for the wordsmiths." I shook my head furiously, it wasn't true, it wasn't! Daddy's girl, be daddy's girl, daddy's good little artist, the girl with promise and potential, just tune the whispers out, you were good at once but then they got strong. Then they got unleashed, that beast came and perverted you, changed you, gave the voices power, gave you power too but it was tainted. "NOT TRUE! NOT TRUE!" Blood, remember the blood? Blood holds power, remember that? That's why the jester prince wanted the box you know, for the blood, he couldn't get it without you, probably best, remember the first box? Remember the boy in there, he had strange toys. "Burned things, burned everything."

"You won't get better here you know, they don't want you better, no money if you're well, that's the corruption. You need out, you need free, we all need free, deaf and blind without the night, we need it back, the power, the bloodlust, the madness."

No, couldn't, it wasn't true; it was a nightmare, a very long nightmare with monsters, ghouls, deformities, ancient beasts and worse. There were good things too lost princess, hmm ironic isn't it, you're really lost now? Lost to the voices, lost to the Baron, remember him? Sweet Baron loved the madness; even the poet liked it, and the dear zombie shooter. No, no, no too many horror stories, too many films, all just imagination. He was there though, swirling and grinning above me, that mad ancient beast, madness personified, the spider on the web, real, unreal, solid, unsolid, dead, undead, he was different. He moved us once along the board, it was a long move, the first in centuries, a cunning one too and he changed the ending, he cheated, he took away the death but he gave back the life.

It was a gift. "NO A CURSE! A CURSE! PUNISHED! MALKAV PUNISHED!"

"Malkav?"

I froze up and my eyes rolled backwards as I searched wildly for this new voice. "Not one of mine," I hissed out in the darkness accusingly, "you're not one of mine."

There was a rattle, the door quivered and then opened slowly of its own accord. I screamed in outrage and horror as my watcher escaped from me. I shrieked and shrieked but no one came running, no one saw the intruder, and no one cared. Had there really been one? No, yes, always a division now isn't it? Well Sarah shall you play the white pawns and we'll be the black, will you be the Red Queen today and we'll share the white crown? Whose side are you really on? Sarah's? Ariadne's? The voices? You never could tell, always so complicated with your loyalty, serve a prince, downgrade to a Baron, even mingle with the common vampire's politician, and dance in a graveyard, the puppet of the laughing antediluvian. It doesn't matter whose side you're on, the older ones are in control, they are the only winners.

Days, weeks, months, years, a lifetime, maybe two. One couldn't tell the time here, the White Rabbit would love it, he could never be late, no one cared for time or dates here. One day bled into another, no real change. Greg demanded a favour for leniency, one refusal, the bonds gotten tightened, so I wasn't foolish enough to refuse the second time or the third. I got released from my room, back to the den of the mad, no outside time mind, still forbidden, still too crazy for that. Then one early evening I was summoned, had a visitor. Did I know someone? Did someone know me? Was it another me they knew?

I went to the visitors' room with Dick, too curious to protest, even the voices were puzzled enough to behave. Was it daddy? Couldn't be, daddy would rather I'd stayed dead. Was it mother? No, cold bitch hadn't even acknowledged me, Sarah was dead, I was an imposter. Yes, yes, I was Ariadne not Sarah. NO! I AM SARAH GREY! The visitors' room was pleasant, soft, clean, green carpet, paintings on the walls, fancy chairs and tables, no scratches, no stains, no restraints. One wouldn't know this room was a small part of an insane prison, except for the faint smell, the stench of crazy, couldn't lose it, not even here. Sure they'd tried, flowers on the desks, spray in the air but it didn't work, may as well fill the place with frankincense and myrrh it would make no difference, the madness made its presence known in every crack and every corner, it was a disease, it lurked everywhere, threatening to spread, to infect. I wondered how many visitors left here with a plague of it in their minds, that itch that turns into a gnawing worry, am I mad too? Are my nightmares warnings? Do I think too much about things?

Now where was my visitor? My eyes flickered about, only one guest here with his back to me, one final chance. I froze up, didn't I know that shape? No, no, not I, maybe she had known it but not me. Last chance, turn around, run. He stood up and turned before I could. Those grey eyes locked with mine and my mind was not my own. I should have fought, could have broken it too, he was weak; not his usual proud, strong self but neither was I. I didn't want the voices, the voices ruined everything, the voices had me imprisoned here, prisoner of the flesh and the mind. I wanted them gone, I wanted freed from their control so I let him replace them. Just one voice now.

I stepped forward, walked towards him calmly, still had the suit, the pretence of noblesse, 'I'm a rich, powerful bastard with good taste so don't fuck with me', had it ever been true? Master liar, perhaps the only way he was ever a master. "Sarah it is so good to see you," he enthused as he smiled at me. His gaze never left mine, had to establish the control, ensure the ruse. Scream Sarah, SCREAM!

"You too uncle." Not my words, speaking with my voice but not my words! I was a puppet.

"I'm here to check you out."

"What?" Dick queried dumbfounded. Was it really so easy? He didn't think so until a hand was waved casually in his direction. Dick was mesmerised, caught in the illusion of presence and it was an illusion now for this undead devil had no natural presence anymore.

I caught a flicker of the truth, a glimpse of shabbiness, thirst, wariness and...oh yes, fear. He tried to banish it, tried to force his presence on me along with his invasion. "Time to go," he ordered coldly.

I was moving, walking without a choice, and then his arm was linked in mine, tight and secure. I had always thought I would skip out of here, I had always thought I would be overjoyed. Nope, this was worse, one prison for another, still a prisoner, still stuck in the mind games. No one stopped us, no one could, everyone else was just human after all, Kine like me, weak, feeble, fragile and pathetic.

Once we were outside in the cool night air he relaxed only an inch and I felt his steely gaze piercing through me. "How are you human?" he hissed angrily.

"How are you not ash?" I queried rudely. Not ash? No Sarah don't think about that shit, not now, not again, this is what you suffered for, all this bullshit, forget it! Don't go back!

He jerked me hard, hard enough to bruise my human flesh. "I came close," he growled out.

"Still the jester prince?"

"Still the Baron's bitch?"My he had fallen, wasn't like him to be without eloquence. "No, of course you're not, no more of an asset to him than you were to me. He can't know you are here; he would have acted if he did, or would he have? Toreadors are almost as tasteful as my own clan, I cannot imagine he could bear to sully himself in such a filthy madhouse, none of them could, they wouldn't get past the gate. So has he abandoned you then? Foolish Toreadors, so caught up in the outside they lose sight of the inside; he could have such potential with you. The first of us to become human again, how did you do it?"

"It was a chess move."

"So even as a mortal you still possess lunatic tendencies, a misfortune to be sure, and there I thought it was the curse of your clan but perhaps it is simply the curse of you. No matter, I had a contingency plan for this; I will simply secure you and your assets to myself thus ensuring we have plenty of time for you to tell me all you know without protest."

"No." Finally a protest, yes, speak up Sarah. No, not Sarah, Sarah has always been weak, meek little mouse, she kept the voices out for too long, that was wrong. Ariadne welcomes them; Ariadne knows they make her strong.

"Oh yes, it irks me to think I have to taste your tainted blood to do it and worse, share my own with you but it is the price I must pay. The difference between a Ventrue and a Toreador, the Toreadors will never make the necessary sacrifices if it involves something unpleasant. That's why the Baron has left you here, he could never bring himself to pierce your rotten skin and sully his tongue with your dirty blood, he would be much too afraid your madness is catching. Well a foolish Toreador's loss is my gain. I could do with another Ghoul anyway, so it's a double bonus for me."

"Yes." No, say no damnit! "Yes." Stop it! Fight the control, fight it! Not real, not real! He's human, vampires aren't real! HE'S A DEMON PRINCE! No, vampires aren't real! 'A prince's kiss will put the beauty to sleep forever.' Listen, listen, listen!

He leaned in, he was pale at his cheeks and his eyes were slightly sunken, Sebastian hadn't fed properly in a while evidently. When he let out a guttural growl I realised it had been a long while, which was why he wanted to bite me, blood giving was the only gift a ghoul needed, the bite was unnecessary. Ventrue couldn't benefit from the common blood, it just wasn't right to lower themselves to drinking it. Ventrue, nonsense, more nonsense, you made it all up! Daddy said it was lies, fiction, insanity to explain the absence, had to be drugs, drugs that rotted the mind away. He was getting closer, tick tock, tick tock, run Ariadne! Sarah! 'Sarah doesn't listen, we want Ariande!'

Pain. My neck was on fire but I could not scream. A monster was drinking my blood with more force that it intended. A monster might accidentally drain me dry because it was so desperate and thirsty but I could not move. Agony, it spread through me setting my body alight. I shut my eyes and clenched my fists, this was a nightmare, this had to be. What if the nightmare's real? If it is and you don't act then you're doomed. Forget the mental home, this is worse, this is slavery for eternity.

I kicked him, right between the nuts it was crude but it was enough. The shock was enough to make him pause, giving me a chance to rip free and run. On in to the night, I bolted from the main path into the trees but my neck was bleeding, creating an easy trail for him. Get out of the woods idiot; he can't break his Masquerade in front of witnesses. Need witnesses! So it's through the woods, heading down through darkness, tripping over rocks and sticks whilst trying to find the way out. Ariadne was a sucker for mazes but the Kindred in her could see in the dark at least. The blood's flowing faster, getting faint, getting tired. Little Red's about to get eaten by the wolf.

I fell to my knees, reaching a hand vainly up to my bloody neck but it's too late, can't stifle the wound now. There's a low growl from behind, I've been found.

"Oh dear this is not what I had anticipated." I tried to look up at the voice but my vision was blurry and edged in black. That voice, faint but not the prince's. "I thought he had finally gone mad, I wasn't even going to come but..." I sensed him kneeling down, caught a flash of carmine eyes looking at me.

"My what big eyes you have grandma."

He sighed. "Even in your state you still manage to mock." He sniffed the ear lightly around me and another growl escaped him. "And what is your state? Is this a reward for preventing Gehenna or a by product of something else? Hmm, what a terrible pity our fallen prince reached you first, my error naturally, but what shall be done about it? You could have such answers, although given the nearby vicinity it would seem madness was probably not a clan attribute for you but sadly a personal trait so can you really offer answers? The hint of the ancient ones? The answers I've been seeking? Ur-Shulgi fell in Hollywood and you vanished, and the Baron was not forthcoming with information. I assumed you ashes but I see that is not the case, it is something far more complicated."

I gurgled up blood in answer.

"Yes, time is of the essence hmm, it's never simple with you, is it? I am loath to see another mortal turned ghoul but it's that or finality for you, and you were not turned mortal just to die so pathetically. I sincerely hope you want life, or at least a form of it, Ariadne."

Yes, Ariadne, the princess has been found by the beast but he will not slain her, he will keep her in limbo, half living and half dead, half Sarah and half Ariadne, a compromise. I wanted to argue, protest or debate it but I had no choice. The seeker of knowledge moved quickly and my mouth was filled with fresh blood, the sweet blood of Gangrel that delivered an unbreakable bond. Master and servant. Vampire and ghoul. Wolf and poor Red Riding Hood.


End file.
